Things don’t always go as planned, they don’t go right and that’s inevitable.  But that’s when the growth takes place. When we are down and out that’s when we get back up. There’s no time to feel sorry for anything but time to get working and fighting and giving our best, then and now and not a moment later.

When I’m down, I look at myself in the mirror and ask myself whose fault it is? And I know the answer.

 What do I need to do to get back to where I’m happy?

What must be done? And I know the answer.

It’s up to me, I am responsible for improving my situation and my success requires me to step up.  There are no easy roads, the world is not all sunshine and rainbows and that’s the truth.

That mindset has sustained me for a few years now. And I posted about this earlier when I wrote about ‘It’s all about energy’. The battle I learned, is in your mind and your mindset, it’s the way you see it, your perception. Just when I thought I had that figured out I realized recently that I was completely oblivious to the excuses I was making for myself. In reality, the problem I had wasn’t physical it was emotional, it was mental, and stressful.  I was lying to myself, making excuses that it was something out of my control but that was the biggest mistake of all. 

We condition our mind to believe what we tell it. If we tell ourselves it’s not our fault enough times, we believe it, if the pain in my back is because I have a spine problem then that is what is true. If we think our students are the problem or our bosses or the education system we are just making excuses and we believe it.

That’s a mistake. I need to hold myself accountable and I need to reprogram my mindset and that is not a switch that we can just turn on and off it’s hard work. When our brain tells us to stop, to go easy, to avoid confrontation, to do as we are told and we know it’s wrong then we need to correct that mistake and stick with it. There is no pain, there is nothing to avoid, there is nothing to be scared of. If I can change my mindset then success is within reach but only that (within reach) and nothing more.

The hard work still remains.

And the reward is where the work is.

Enjoyed this post? You can find more on the teaching blog of the site, or sign up for the monthly Freshen Up newsletter, see you at the next one.